FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
A (friendly) stranger among us
After six years of preparation,
Bartok Guitarsplat emerges from a dark place and proves he's not just talk
by Derek McEwenBartok Guitarsplat is a man of many talents: visual artist, musician, writer; the list goes on. But talking to Bartok leads you to understand that most importantly, he is a man of words. Many, many words.
In all reality (and I hesitate to use that word in any relation to this artist), Bartok is a persona created by Rodney Brent, a Calgary man who recently returned from Toronto to besiege our city with the noise, color and concepts that are his world.
Brent's artistic concept is one which takes elements from nearly every imaginable source and molds them into one. "Spontaneous improvisation" spills through his hands into his guitar, his clothing and his visual work. The concept is simple: making things out of nothing and not stopping until the piece has finished itself. In practice, the philosophy can make it difficult at times.
"You have to know what the audience understands. People don't react to what they don't understand," explains Rodney. Thus, a show at a quiet coffee shop will have Brent tapping into his repertoire of old folk standards, while a recent show at the Night Gallery resembled what an industrial turbine may sound like from the inside to a mite: loud and scary. The latter is what Brent terms "Acoustic Electro Psychosis."
"I discovered acoustic electro music and researched it quite a bit. I just sort of turned it around a bit, to having an acoustic instrument's sound processed through electrical effects," Rodney says. "I guess the psychosis part is my own madness, my own mind."
And while he hesitates to call his music purely improvised, that is simply because of his definition: if there is a base to work off, namely an imagination, it can't be true improvisation. It is the imagination of the creator that drives all the creation.
Needless to say - to those who have seen him perform - the imagination of Rodney Brent is a strange one. While some remember him from his days as guitarist for the local outfit Sacred Heart of Elvis, others can recall his three-minute segment on CBC at the peak of interest in his recycled can art.
"I just think that I probe my imagination and this is what comes out," he says, flipping through a thick portfolio of furniture, clothing, collage and guitars that make the average Gibson look like a piece of raw lumber.
Having lived in Toronto for six years, the man behind Guitarsplat refers to the time as a manic period of creation. "I went into a very dark place," he says pausing. "I don't know if I want to go back, if I'm ready." It is in this realm that Brent found his artistic spirit, or at least began to form it. From this rose the concept of Bartok Guitarsplat as a musician, allowing Brent to maintain anonymity.
"When you're behind a persona, you can do more, come out more."
The Guitarsplat persona is only one of the monikers Brent uses, but he finds Bartok to encompass a great deal of what he does. "He was created more for music than visual work, but he just started coming out in it." The visual and audio unite occasionally, such as in his show for the High Performance Rodeo, but seeing a Guitarsplat performance is more an audio experience than anything else.
"I like to have the visual component. I like dressing up and I like bands that dress up. It just adds to the fun." He understands that the performance aspect is important, yet rather than fake his way through it, he hopes for the audience to adjust. "My video - you can't sit and watch that. It gives something for the TV screen to do while the music plays. You can do whatever, put it on and then walk around your house."
Those six years in Toronto were also his research and development time for what has evolved into a distinct style.
"I don't have to go back to that dark place again," he laughs. "I've got enough here to last a lifetime!" Truth be told, he just might - and there are already indications he is on the right track.
It is left to be seen if the success he achieved in Toronto can be found in a smaller, less cosmopolitan city such as Calgary, but Rodney feels he is now at a point where he can concentrate more on the marketing and less on the creating. With plans for two big projects this year, Brent will test the waters of this land-locked burg. And in the meantime, that ringing you hear won't be the chinook wind howling through the office towers, but Bartok Guitarsplat, a whole lot of pedals and one really unique guitar.
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